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His teammates immediately liked their shy, soft-spoken kicker; and not just because he accounted for every point the Bills scored in the opening two weeks (four total field goals in losses to San Diego and the New York Jets) of the 1985 Season.

“Scott was just a guy who showed up every day, worked his butt off, did everything he was told, didn’t cause any problems, was a nice guy, and did his thing,” said John Kidd, Buffalo’s punter and holder for placekickers from 1984 to 1989. “And he was really good at it. He worked really hard at being the best kickoff guy that he could be, and really trying to do everything field position–wise to help the team win. And he was an accurate field-goal kicker with a really good leg and handled the conditions in Buffalo really well.”

As the Bills began to mold a championship-caliber team in the later part of the decade, Norwood was a key contributor to the success. An overtime field goal in Week Six of the 1987 season snapped a six-game losing streak against division-rival Miami. An exuberant Norwood jumped into the arms of teammate Steve Tasker.

The next season—the precise time that the Bills morphed into a contender—Norwood was the conference’s best kicker. A pair of overtime winners—a last-second forty-one-yarder to defeat New England, and two field goals in the final quarter of Buffalo’s 9-6 comeback over Miami—helped produce four of their franchise-record twelve victories. In late November against the Jets, his thirty-yard kick in overtime clinched the AFC East title.

“In 1988, we finished 12-4 and New England finished 10-6,” Bills special teams coach Bruce DeHaven recalled. “If he doesn’t hit those field goals, New England finishes 12-4 and we’re 10-6, and they go into the playoffs.”

That string of clutch performances, along with an NFL-best thirty-two field goals and 129 points, earned Norwood a spot on the all-pro team and a trip to Honolulu for the Pro Bowl. The following season, Buffalo repeated as division champions, and again, Norwood finished among the league’s best in points and field goals. That year, he surpassed O. J. Simpson as the team’s all-time leading scorer.

But punter John Kidd’s off-season departure meant a new holder for Norwood: backup quarterback Frank Reich. For a meticulous and nuanced person like Norwood, the drastic change had a tremendous effect. He missed six field goals and two extra points in the first six games of the 1990 season.

With the help of his father, who attended all his games to observe his son’s technique from the stands with a pair of binoculars, Norwood recognized and corrected a flaw in his approach.

“You set yourself up for failure if your angle is too shallow, if you’re not out far enough,” he said. “If you start out straight, your hips have only one way to go, and it sets you up for a hook, whereas if I’m over more, the hips can’t go through that far. It takes a few misses like that to come up with such an evaluation.”

It was no wonder that he had such an elaborate explanation for his struggles: Norwood was a perfectionist. Teammates playfully teased him for a few of his habits. He brushed his teeth religiously, three, four times, at the stadium on game day. He also shaved and combed his hair before each practice and carried a detailed appointment book everywhere he went.

“He’s always right on time for team meetings, and he’s so organized and clean,” Steve Tasker said. “I roped his locker off one day with tape and put a sign on it that said, ‘A clean locker is a sign of a sick man.’ I’m all over him about that. You look at him and think ‘Now that’s a guy my mom would really be proud of.’ His mom has to look at him and just beam.”

And his exactness translated onto the field.

“He’s very picky about things,” Frank Reich said, “especially the way I hold for him. It’s like if you put the ball down and you miss the spot by an eighth of an inch, it’s like ‘Frank, you missed the spot by an eighth of an inch.’ But that’s good. You shoot for perfection and then your